Two Spanish Mirage F1 warplanes crashed during a training mission in Albacete yesterday, killing all three airforce crew, the country’s defence ministry said. Carme Chacon, the defence minister, yesterday left Madrid for the south-eastern province to visit the site and meet relatives of the dead, who were based at the town of Los Llanos. It was not immediately clear whether the fighter planes had collided in mid-air or gone down separately. Wreckage from the two aircraft was found about 1.8 miles apart. One of the French-made jets was a single-seater, the other could hold a crew of two.

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RRbP6fpJWAc/SWf9W811HQI/AAAAAAAAA2U/IaXlNsWNQ9M/s1600-h/jf-17stealth.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 352px; height: 225px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RRbP6fpJWAc/SWf9W811HQI/AAAAAAAAA2U/IaXlNsWNQ9M/s400/jf-17stealth.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289474858100792578″ border=”0″ //aIn what is seen as a counter to India’s effort to jointly develop the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) with Russia’s Sukhoi Aircraft Corp, Pakistan’s Kamra-based Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and China’s Chengdu Aerospace Corp (CAC) last October inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly develop an advanced, stealthy, single-seat and single-engined derivative of the JF-17 Thunder fourth-generation light multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) that is already being co-developed by PAC and CAC. Consequently, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) is expected to induct only 100 JF-17s into service between this year and 2014, and subsequently switch over to the acquisition of another 150 JF-17-derived fifth-generation stealthy MRCAs between 2015 and 2025. Present plans call for the latter MRCA to be powered by SNECMA Moteurs’ M88-3 twin-shaft bypass turbofan, incorporate a digital glass cockpit and open-architecture avionics suite, and use SELEX Sensors and Airborne Systems’ Vixen 500E X-band multi-mode active phased-array radar, or AESA, an integrated electronic warfare/defensive aids suite being developed by China’s CETC, along with a helmet-mounted sighting-cum-cueing system for which systems from THALES, BAE Systems and Denel Aerospace are being evaluated. The M88 turbofan for this aircraft will have variable camber inlet guide vanes, while its high-pressure compressor will have a sixth stage, and its exhaust nozzle will be of the ejector type. The turbofan will deliver 50kN (11,250lb) of dry thrust and 75kN (17,000lb) with afterburning. The primary offensive armament to be carried by this aircraft will be two underwing-mounted Hatf-8 (also called ‘Raad’ or ‘thunder’ in Arabic) air-launched cruise missile, which has a range of 350km. For air combat engagements, the stealthy MRCA will be armed with three types of air-to-air missiles: 60km-range PL-12 beyond visual range missile; 15km-range PL-13 within visual range missile; and PL-14 ramjet-powered 100km-range missile. The latter two have been developed by China in cooperation with South Africa’s Denel Aerospace.br /br /Source: a href=”http://www.tempur.com.my/dcp.news.view.asp?newsID=346amp;categoryID=12″Tempur/a

India has signed a US$2.1 billion (S$3 billion) with US aerospace giant Boeing to buy maritime surveillance aircraft for the Indian navy,br /br /The agreement to buy eight P-81 long-range reconnaissance aircraft marks India’s biggest military aircraft deal with the United States, defence ministry officials said. The contract was signed on January 1 2009 in New Delhi.br /br /’The deal is finally through and we will receive the first P-81 in 2013 while the remaining seven will be procured in a phased manner over the next three or four years,’ a senior official said on condition he not be named.br /br /The contract includes lifetime maintenance support and an option for the acquisition of up to eight additional P-81 aircraft, the official said.br /br /The deal comes less than a year after India and US-based Lockheed Martin signed an agreement worth 962 million dollars for the purchase of six C-130 Hercules transport planes for the Indian army.br /br /Both Lockheed and Boeing are also in the race for a US$12 billion contract to sell 126 fighter jets to the Indian air force. Four other global companies from France, Russia, and the European Union are in the race for the world’s richest fighter jet deal in 16 years.br /br /India last year also signed a 1.5-billion euro (US$2.2 billion) deal with France’s Dassault to upgrade 51 Mirage 2000 fighter jets, which the Indian air force bought in 1985.br /br /India, the largest buyer of armaments among emerging nations, plans to spend 30 billion dollars until 2012 to modernize its 1.23-million-strong military, the world’s fourth largest.br /br /Source: a href=”http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Money/Story/STIStory_322210.html”Straits Times/a